Good one Bill

Bill English has stopped the sale of BlueScope’s Taharoa ironsands business to a Chinese investor based on the fact that it won’t bring any value to New Zealand. Good on him. If we aren’t going to profit from investment then why should we allow it?

Of course there is the small issue of hypocrisy given John Key’s wailing over the last government’s decision to stop a similar sale of the Auckland airport but I’m sure somebody from the right will be able to explain here why that was completely different.

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20 comments on “Good one Bill”

I think that reason would be that the Canadians only wanted a 30% (or something like that) shareholding in AIA. This would have left the majority ownership in NZ hands. That is rather different than owning the entire thing. Maybe im wrong though :o)

BTW … lprent … Congrats on getting the edit to work. Works like a charm now.

also, is this another sleight of hand which is in fact part of the large shifting of the centre of the nats to accommodate more of NZers views on many things, including foreign ownership. Foreign ownership is one area where imo it should be far more heavily restricted – of the underlying land in the first instance at least..

AIA was a total different situation, back then Aunty Helen told private share holders who they can or cannot sell their shares to, I could understand it, if the government was a shareholder and didn’t want to sell their shares, but to tell TEN THOUSAND PRIVATE SHAREHOLDERS that they couldn’t sell their owns shares was just a repulsive thing to do.

But that is the level that Labour got to and why a lot of people who use to vote for them (myself) didn’t, they have this attitude of “We know what is best, and we will take away any decision from you”

A couple of things – it was the fact Cullen decided against advice and legislation that he didn’t want Canadians buying a minority stake so changed the legislation on the fly to back himself up that got most people upset.

I’m not necessarily against the decision, but realise all we’ve done is stopped the Aussies from selling to the guy from Hong Kong. Certainly made a massive difference to New Zealand there!
I still don’t see the rational for stopping that sort of activity – there’s something to be said for stopping strategic assets going offshore (although frankly there’s a long line of offshore people I’d rather have buying our assets than Msrs Fay, Richwhite, Watson, or Petricivec) but what do we care about the nationality of the owner once it’s already there? Note that the AIA deal was similar in this aspect – the Canadians wanted to buy 40%, 40% was already owned by OFFSHORE hedge funds who were very keen to get in on the sale so it would largely have been a transfer of foreign ownership to a much more palatable long-term investor than short-term hedgie…

Doesnt matter who owns them apart from the sahreholder, The fact is a PRIVATE SHAREHOLDER should have the right to sell his/hers shares to who they want to, without interference from a socialist government.

I see good sense in not allowing overseas interests to own local monopolies. If anyone should be milking us all like buggery for monopoly rents, it should be our OWN pension fund…..not a Canadian one. (Note: I was born in Canada).

If overseas interests want to come here and BUILD something with their own money (real foreign investment), I have no issues at all. But if they simply want to buy up local monopolies with borrowed cash and then make us pay for them all over again PLUS a profit……screw that.

Efficient for them and damn STUPID for us to keep paying for each new overseas acquisition through our purchase of their goods AND also their return on the asset.

The government could buy the damn thing and even if they ran it at a loss we would STILL be better off overall.

New Zealand is a place of sublime natural beauty, populated exclusively by sheep, hobbits, and, lately, hoteliers. But for a high-style antipodal experience, it’s hard to know where to stay. Unless, of course you happen to be Christopher Petkanas.

From September 2005

New Zealand is the new Eden, its clean and green image the beneficiary of a public-relations windfall direct from Middle-earth. Americans are not just visiting the country in numbers unimaginable only ï¬ve years agoâ€”they’re immigrating, drawn by an arcadian ideal (never underestimate the pacifying effect of several billion sheep), breathtakingly cheap waterfront real estate, see-through fish-tank architecture, and an investment climate that, as one Las Vegas resort ownercumSouth Island winemaker puts it, makes New Zealand “the Switzerland of the South Seas.”
One of the most powerful forces in the shilling of the nation is Helen Clark, familiar to all Kiwis as Madame Prime Minister. In her book, there are no bad tourists, only ones with shallow pockets. And in a recent campaign that will go down in history, Clark aggressively packaged and promoted New Zealand as a place where Californians in particular, because of their relative proximity and the kinship in lifestyles, might consider putting down roots. “Active recruitment,” she called it, and some of the state’s richest residents signed up. Vive le marketing.

Just feel like adding 2c more re foreign ownership. My basic theory in 3 words or less goes… How on earth can we kiwis compete with 300million Americans and say 500million Europeans for ownership of our land? And why the hell should we? It is just bloody ludicrous. We can’t. Hence the reason the ‘best’ land (coastal, lake, etc) is now super expensive and the people who live here are excluded. If foreigners want to own land in NZ then they need to live here. NZ cannot suffer absentee ownership of its land. And tenancy communities are the weakest communities. And thats more than 3 words and badly expressed. And now I’ve gotta go – what a terrible post.

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